


Poorboys and Pilgrims

by phantomreviewer



Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Presumed Dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:12:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4922707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomreviewer/pseuds/phantomreviewer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Officially the remaining Elders are running themselves as a collective in the absence of their District Leader. But to nobody’s surprise Elder Price has declared himself in charge. You can lead a horse away from conventional Mormonism but you cannot force him not to be self-important and overly-righteous, even if this the new and improved Elder Price has learnt a little humility alongside his propensity towards vulgarity.</p><p>(Or, Elder McKinley and Elder Thomas go missing after a routine trip.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poorboys and Pilgrims

**Author's Note:**

  * For [slightlytookish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlytookish/gifts).



> So, I write fanfiction for The Book of Mormon now, who'd have thought it? I suppose that this has been building since May. Dedicated to Took in its entirety.
> 
> Title from the Paul Simon song Graceland, (and I promise that it's not as dark as it pretends to be.)

Elder Thomas and Elder McKinley have left to make the three day round trip to the nearest village which receives international post. There have been no deliveries to their small part of Africa since the letter from the Mission President, so Thomas and McKinley have set out instead to go and pick up the biyearly letters delivered to the mission as well as to pick up extra supplies. They are running a little low on utilities and the local market, while as bustling and full of life as ever, does not have the provisions needed to supply an entire village, let alone the hungry mouths of teenage and twenty-something American boys.

Things have been, awkward, to say the least. Despite the fiasco of the pageant inspired by Prophet Cunningham’s teachings and the subsequent moment of clarity which led to them staying in Uganda as opposed to running back to the States in disgrace, they appear to still be on a Mission. Even if it is not quite the mission which the Church of the Latter Day Saints entirely approves of. They aren’t being supported by the Church but they also haven’t technically been excommunicated, they haven’t been ordered to leave their lives here and have not been sent back to America in disgrace. Instead they have been granted a cooling off period, and all of the Elders are quite happy to remain in limbo where they have the possibly of ascending as well as falling. They are all hopeful that eventually they’ll be accepted back into the Church, officially once the Mission President has accepted the good work they do, even if it is at the expense of scripture.

So for now they are fending for themselves, and McKinley and Thomas are going to the next village to pick up the supplies which would normally be provided by the mission.

It takes three days. Or at least it is supposed to.

Officially the remaining Elders are running themselves as a collective in the absence of their District Leader. But to nobody’s surprise Elder Price has declared himself in charge. You can lead a horse away from conventional Mormonism but you cannot force him not to be self-important and overly-righteous, even if this the new and improved Elder Price has learnt a little humility alongside his propensity towards vulgarity. None of the other Elders will say anything more explicit than ‘gosh’, even now. The other Elders flounder for a while, but it is far easier to bend under Price’s enthusiasm than it is oppose him. And he intends to be harmless and Arnold Cunningham, he never seems like an Elder it is either Prophet Cunningham or just Arnold, helps to temper him. Privately the other Elders think that if they didn’t have Arnold then Elder Price would be unbearable to work with.

All hell breaks loose when, three days after Elder McKinley and Elder Thomas left, Elder Buttfuckingnaked arrives at the door.

Technically none of them should be scared of the ex-General, after all Buttfuckingnaked is a baptised member of their church. He has accepted the teachings of Jesus, Han Solo and Prophet Cunningham into his life, but that doesn’t stop the trepidation when the former warlord starts pounding at the flimsy door of the mission house.

“Elder B?” Elder Church’s voice only stumbles a little and he stutters over Butteffingnaked’s explicit name even in his own head, “How- how may we help you today, Elder?”

Elder Buttfuckingnaked does not bring good news. Even as he stands in the small kitchen surrounded by concerned Elders and idly munching a poptart – they are all sure that Elder Thomas won’t mind –the other Elders are starting to subtly panic. They have all gotten worse at turning things off since Elder Price and Elder Cunningham turned everything upside-down, in a situation like this, more than one of them reflects that life was sometimes easier when they could turn off those feelings that didn’t feel right.

“The men in the next village over, they are not good Mormons like us and they have never read the Book of Arnold. They do not understand the lessons of Elder Uhura of peace and unity. You white boys should have told me that some of you were planning on leaving, I would have had my men come with you. You should all be more careful around here, Uganda is not safe for people like you.”

Nothing happens immediately. Elder Buttfuckingnaked leaves and all the Elders have left to do is to wait. Another day passes, and then two and three and suddenly it has been a week and Elders McKinley and Thomas still haven’t returned. It is starting to feel strange in the mission hut, without Elder Thomas’ snoring and without finding poptart crumbs in the centrefold of the Books of Arnold and Mormon. Strange not to hear Elder McKinley singing under his breath while he writes up various reports on the success of their mission and strange not to see him sashaying across the kitchen as he does the washing up.

Elder Buttfuckingnaked accompanies some of his baptised men out to go and do some reconnaissance, to ask the right sort of questions and to generally be really fucking polite about where their missing Elders are, but they come back almost empty handed. There is no news.  It seems as though Elder McKinley and Elder Thomas just disappeared into the night. No one has seen anything of the two men, who should stand out in Uganda.

Although no one has seen them the search party return with one item, and it is solemnly placed down on the table in front of the other Elders. A battered and abandoned copy of the Book of Mormon, found in the dust, looks back at them. None of the Elders speak for the rest of the evening.

Suddenly its easier with Elder Price acting as District Leader, because it isn’t on any of their heads to rally their spirits, or, Heavenly Father forbid, have to contact the families’ of McKinley and Thomas. Objectively they all know that they have to contact the Missionary Training Centre, that they need to be in communication with the Mission President for their district. As far as they are from being Latter Day Saints in the eyes of the Church they would still care. They have to believe that the Church still loves them, that’s what the Church is supposed to do.

Arnold has been crying, he doesn’t make a secret of it. He’s unlike all the other Elders, even before everything he’d confessed to never having had a hell dream, had never had any feelings that confused him, had never had the guilt that they all associated with just how it was to be a Mormon. But he’s not the only person who has been crying, not even the only Elder although years of learning to hide their emotions have meant that none of them as are as comfortable weeping into Nabalungi’s shoulder as the great Prophet Cunningham is. Even Nabulungi, who has known too much sorrow in her young life has been quietly mourning the missing Elders and preparing for the worst.

Elder Price is still. Since he broke with tradition and accepted coffee into his life he hasn’t been still always full of almost childlike enthusiasm. But now he stands rigid and stiff like the devout Mormon boy he was when he arrived and not the Elder of the Church of Arnold who he grew into being.

There is no singing, and no dancing in the mission house any more.

They don’t talk about the decision that they have to make. They pray and they hope and they wait, but where the Elders are attempting to cling onto hope the resigned faces of Mafala Hatimbi and Nabulungi and all the locals are becoming harder and harder to counter with faith alone. They don’t talk about it, they don’t sit down and make the decision one morning over their breakfast, but two weeks later, when the mission house has been missing two of its Elders for too long, they all know.

Elder Price, still declaring himself de facto District Leader, although with a lot less gusto than when Elder McKinley departed, is the one drafting the letters of notification and condolences. The other Elders are gathered around watching him write, hands twisting and once the letters have been drafted, and they’ve gathered their thoughts into words they are going to phone the Mission President.

“Hello! Have you missed us?”

McKinley has a bag flung over his shoulders, a hand cocked on his hip and has just parked up his iconic pink suitcase inside the door of the mission house. Elder Thomas has his arms laden with boxes and despite looking tired is smiling widely, as though he couldn’t think of anywhere he’d rather be.

Everyone freezes.

And then Elder Price, surprising everyone including himself, launches from his chair and engulfs Elder McKinley in a hug. Bag dropped and suitcase fallen with a clatter McKinley squeaks, arms flailing as Elder Price all but picks him up in his enthusiasm. Someone is audibly crying, and everyone politely pretends that it isn’t Elder Price.

Everyone but Elder McKinley and Elder Thomas, who haven’t been made aware of the situation in their absence.

“Are- are you alright Elder Price?”

His voice only hitches a little as Price tightens his hold around his middle and his feet very briefly leave the floor.

Price sobs properly and that breaks the tension in the room and suddenly the other Elders are crowding around them; Elder Thomas is surrounded by patting hands and furrowed brows, as though they all need to touch him to know that he’s alive. He looks a little overwhelmed.

Elder McKinley is very overwhelmed.

“Right - Elder Price put me down – there, there, no. Right, as District Leader I insist on being told what has been going on? I cannot believe that you’ve missed us this badly. I know that we were significantly delayed on our return and we come with gifts but there’s no reason for such theatricalities.”

In the end the only person able to answer Elder McKinley is Arnold and for once every word he says is completely truthful. He tells of their disappearance, of Elder Buttfuckingnaked and his warning, of the recovery of the battered copy Book of Mormon of how there had been no one who would account for their absence of how they were about to break their silence to the Mission President to declare them missing and how Elder Price was just writing letters to their families. Of how none of the Elders knew each other’s first names and the guilt that it brought on top of everything.

Arnold’s sentences stumble into a halt and Elder Davis rubs his shoulders supportively.

Elder McKinley looks like it might burst into tears, standing unsteadily now that Elder Price has awkwardly put him down and stepped away.

“Oh My  _Gosh_ , Elders!”

Elder Price hasn’t spoken since his initial outburst but his hands have been trembling and McKinley grasps those fluttering fingers as he talks, trying to reassure the others.

“Elders, Elders! Poptarts and I have been totally fine. I am so, so sorry that you thought something had happened to us, I can’t imagine what you have all been through. We should have tried harder to get a message to you. Our bus broke down and we ended up preaching to the mechanics and the fine Ugandan people who allowed us to stay in their homes while the bus was fixed. We might even make a baptism out of it. And that was even before we made it to the village. I am so sorry Elders, but as you can see, we are both quiet well.”

As if on cue Elder Thomas sidesteps the comforting arms of Elders Neeley and Michaels and reaches down into one of the boxes that he had dropped. Luckily, there is nothing breakable within and instead starts dividing up the gifts. There are bananas, a slightly sad looking plant – “to brighten up the place” - a skipping rope, a worn copy of Harry Potter - “the one is for Prophet Cunningham” - and a bag of coffee beans. The other Elders, having spoken to their missing Elders and having had their shoulder’s squeezed reassuringly and having their gifts divvied out are satisfied that Thomas and McKinley are safely returned to them. Price still hasn’t spoken.

“Elder? Are you quite alright Elder?” 

Elder Price doesn’t turn to look at McKinley, even as he swallows deeply and starts to talk, low and quiet. As though these are private words being ripped out of him, for all that he had spoken, preached even, about the importance of letting out one’s feelings, it is always harder when it is yourself. Elder McKinley listens.

“I was… worried. I was worried about you. Not about me, I am fine. I was acting District Leader and I had to write those letters and none of the locals knew what had happened and, you, you’re an incredible district leader. I thought I’d- I thought we’d  _lost_ you. And Elder Thomas. As a district. Despite everything that happened what I did, what Arnold and I have done, you’ve kept this district together. We’re all still here, because of you, and, you might not have been.”

McKinley is blushing, a deep scarlet that highlights the touch of sunburn on his nose and cheekbones and throws his freckles into relief.

“Thank you Elder Price, that was very nice of you to say, and I’m sorry for causing you so much distress.”

There is a moment of reflection and tranquillity, even amid the quiet laughs of the other Elders. Arnold has already tripped over the skipping rope and Elders Schrader and Zelder have, of all things, started playing hopscotch. It is as though they weren’t half way into mourning an hour ago. Their faith paid off, even as they started to doubt themselves.

Elder McKinley coughs, it is obviously an artificial cough but it has the semblance of appearing natural and casual.

“Elder Price? You do know that you’re still holding my hand, right?”

Elder Price doesn’t look down at where their hands are joined, and he doesn’t turn his face to look at McKinley, still blushing like a firetruck, but he does smile. It briefly lights up his face and then he squeezes his fingers, just a fraction.

“Oh, that. Yes.”

Again McKinley coughs, almost overcome with the desire to pull away with an excuse and a smile. But he doesn’t.

“Right. Okay.”

And with that, things return as much to normal as they ever are on this particular mission.  Changing slowly and moving ever forward.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my fanfic tumblr [phantaire](www.phantaire.tumblr.com)


End file.
